Post by josborne on Sept 10, 2013 13:37:18 GMT
Hey all,
I want to paint our carbon fibre structure white this year to avoid overheating our rocket. I did a back of the envelope calculation and found that the surface temperature of black carbon fibre in the desert heat can get up to 80C, and I imagine inside the rocket it'll get even hotter. Within this range you risk frying some of your circuitry and particularly if you are using nitrous oxide for hybrids you're going to have some issues with it going supercritical. I've been looking into how to paint carbon fibre and it seems to be pretty similar to car painting. The procedure I have in my head at the moment would be:
1) Wet sand the carbon fibre
2) Apply primer (using a paint gun)
3) Apply base coat as needed (probably requires 3 coats)
4) Apply clear-coat
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for this? It seems to me the best is just to use regular automotive paint.
I want to paint our carbon fibre structure white this year to avoid overheating our rocket. I did a back of the envelope calculation and found that the surface temperature of black carbon fibre in the desert heat can get up to 80C, and I imagine inside the rocket it'll get even hotter. Within this range you risk frying some of your circuitry and particularly if you are using nitrous oxide for hybrids you're going to have some issues with it going supercritical. I've been looking into how to paint carbon fibre and it seems to be pretty similar to car painting. The procedure I have in my head at the moment would be:
1) Wet sand the carbon fibre
2) Apply primer (using a paint gun)
3) Apply base coat as needed (probably requires 3 coats)
4) Apply clear-coat
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for this? It seems to me the best is just to use regular automotive paint.